postWhedon Buffyverse Episode 4 Quietly Into
by jayman419
Summary: Colleen has driven Faith and the other Cleveland defenders into hiding. Angel decides that he has to get back to grassroots level work if he's going to make a difference again. Meanwhile, Buffy's demands on the new Watcher's Council begin to get results.


Author's Note: Use the chapter link in the upper right to view multiple chapters in the same episode. Visit my link for any episodes you may have missed.

Episode Four

Quietly Into

There were too many people in the bar, although the term only applied loosely. Drusilla was sitting alone in a booth in the corner, horrified at the stench of it all. She was hearing a story from a picture in the wallpaper, humming softly to herself. She paid no attention to the comings and goings of the beings around her.

There was a drink on the table, which Drusilla had forgotten ordering. Condensation had collected on the glass, dripping down into a ring on the table. Lindsey still had plenty of clear space for his briefcase, as he and Lilah sat down opposite the ancient vampire.

Lindsey wore a freshly pressed, extremely expensive looking suit, and showed no scars or other wounds from his last encounter among the living. Lilah looked lovely, as usual, with her now typical neck scarf firmly in place. Drusilla paid them no attention until Lindsey began knocking on the table.

"Hello, little doll," he said. "Anyone home?"

"What do you want?" Dru said, with a pout. "It's not bad enough you rotten figments have interrupted my story?"

"After the previous success of your ventures with Wolfram & Hart, the company would like to offer you an opportunity to renew our association." Lilah said all of this with her typical, emotionless voice.

Like Lilah, Lindsey had forgotten the eternity clause. He'd nearly escaped this contract, but even though he tried to quit and had gone into hiding, he was still forced to serve in his afterlife.

He opened his briefcase and took out several files. He spread photographs out on the table. "Some of your former associates have been causing some trouble for us in Los Angeles," Lindsey said.

"I hear the real trouble is in the dog pound," Dru said in a whisper. "The pretty girls are all over with blood."

"What's she talking about?" Lilah asked, turning to Lindsey with an exasperated sigh.

"I don't know," he said. "But I'm sure it's important to her."

They sat together in silence for a few minutes until Dru's eye caught Spike in one of the photographs.

"What's he doing there?" she asked.

"Pretending he's a champion," Lindsey said.

"He'll wear the cape but not the shield," Dru said.

"We need you to come with us," Lindsey said.

"Are you going to take me to Spike?" Dru asked.

"Yes, we need you to help us," Lilah said.

"I don't know if I can," Dru said, curling her hands in front of her mouth.

"Sure you can," Lindsey said, taking her hand and coaxing her out of the booth. "You'll be real good at it."

Holland was waiting in a limo outside, and the entire resources of the trans-dimensional law firm stood ready to make sure Drusilla made it back to Los Angeles as fast as possible.

"What will I do when I get there?" Dru asked.

"We want you to deliver a message," Lindsey said. "And hopefully get Spike to go away."

"He won't want to come with me," Dru said, sadly. "He's angry."

"I'm sure he's not as upset as you think," Lilah said. "It's been five years."

"Only an insect would think an eye blink mattered," Dru said. She rocked quietly from side to side, listening to the music that the colors around her created in her broken mind.

"Would you try?" Lindsey asked, his smokey voice making the answer obvious.

* * *

The Immortal sat upon his throne, deep within his palatial estate. Despite what everyone thought about his capabilities and command over Europe and the Hellmouth, he was nothing more than another stooge for Wolfram & Hart. He didn't like the orders that came down, but he had no choice but to allow Buffy and her allies all the time they needed to set up their new little club.

He wasn't sure how long they were going to bind his hands like this, but he knew that it wouldn't be long before they became just as entrenched and well-funded as the old Council had been, except this time with as many Slayers on the field as they wanted.

The door creaked open, and one of his half-demon minions came into the room. He carried a tray with a skull on it, clenched in the jaw was an envelope. He took the message over to the Immortal and knelt until he had taken it.

The Immortal's ice blue eyes scanned the paper for a moment before he balled it up and tossed it into the fire.

"We're too late," he said.

"What should we do, master?"

"Ready my chariot, I will go to the castle."

"Yes, my lord." The beast scurried off to ready the car.

* * *

Everyone gathered in Angel's meeting room, ready to deliver their reports about the status of the war for Los Angeles. The people here were all that stood between humanity's freedom and the return of the dark ages, but no one knew it. If only the forces of good could pool their resources the way Wolfram & Hart was able to organize the forces against them.

Gwen shuffled through a stack of photographs, her new ring glinting on her finger. Spike had decided to get a better seat for this meeting, and was beside her looking over her shoulder. Dawn was absent, figuring her time was better spent upstairs reading.

"Ok, people," Angel said. "Let's hear it."

Gwen stood up first, eager to make a report about their assignment. The real reason she was excited was the item she'd gotten out of it, but she didn't realize it. She showed Angel the map of the area they'd hit and confirmed that most of it was clear.

Sin Jinn followed with a long and detailed account of what a week's worth of his scouts had uncovered. Angel listened to all of this with a growing boredom.

"This isn't my place," he said at last. "I belong out there on the streets, making a difference. Not up here in a boardroom making decisions that any trained monkey could make."

"So what do you propose we do? Close up shop, each of us take a block or two and go from there?" Spike smirked at Angel as he spoke.

"No," Angel conceded. "Someone has to manage the overarching strategy, that someone just doesn't have to be me."

"I will take command," Illyria said. "If you are unwilling to fulfill your duties, I will not fail."

"Let's ease up a little on all the talk of failure," Angel said, on the defensive. "I just think that I'd be better off at the ground level, too."

"You can't," Cordy said suddenly. "You're much too important, they need you up here."

"What's on your mind, Cordy?" Angel asked. "You haven't had an opinion since you showed up."

"Because there's nothing I can do that you won't write off as the impatience of an evil being," Cordy said, exasperated. "I had a vision. You're in danger."

"I'm always in danger," Angel said, mostly ignoring her.

"This one's serious," Cordy said, refusing to cede the floor. "There's some kind of infection making vampires sick, if you go out there you're going to meet them and you're going to catch it. Then we're going to watch you die."

"There's a what, now?" Spike asked. "How come no one told me…"

"I'm not going to die," Angel said, although in all honesty the thought didn't hold much dread.

"I'm not going to let you die," Cordelia corrected him. "If you see a pack of sickly vampires, you get the hell out of Dodge."

"Your visions have never given us situations to avoid before, Cordy." Angel paced at his end of the table. "They've always been about something we have to do. How do you know that this one is a warning?"

"Because I saw you, lying in bed, dying."

"But not dead?" Angel asked.

"No," Cordy had to admit. "You weren't dead. But no one seemed to have any ideas about how to make you better, either."

"Then we don't worry about how to make me better. We worry about what's making all the vampires sick, and deal with that. Once we fix them, I won't be in any danger."

"It could be a lack of healthy blood," Spike suggested. "Maybe they're not getting all their vitamins and whatnot."

"Could be," Angel said. "What else?"

"Obviously an infection," Gwen said. "They scavenged off of someone who was sick, and now it's spreading through their ranks."

"But what would make it infectious to vampires?" Angel asked. "It's not like we can catch colds."

"It's probably transferred through open wounds," Gwen said. "Vampires fight together, they get scratched up and don't notice until later. I doubt vampires have good hand washing habits."

"I wish we had Fred," Angel said, before thinking. Everyone looked to Illyria, but the uncomfortable silence just grew in length.

"I have access to all of her memories, if you would like me to retrieve them," Illyria said finally.

"No," Nikodemus said, stepping forward from his place against the wall. "We must show some respect for the dead."

Spike glanced around to see if anyone noticed Nikodemus' unusual reaction, but no one did.

"So be it," Illyria conceded. "There is a less drastic measure, I am still able to see many of the things that Fred would see. There are many echoes inside this shell. Do you want her advice?"

"Yes," Angel said without hesitation. "I need to hear what she has to say."

Illyria closed her eyes, and her image began to shift. It almost looked like she was about to turn into the corn-fed country girl that so many people had loved and lost, but it was only a split-second. Illyria opened her eyes and sighed.

"Fred was all about the empirical," Illyria began. "Which means in this situation she would want as much physical evidence to look at as she could possibly get her hands on."

Illyria let a moment pass as the implications sank in. "Unless we get one of these sick vampires to study, there's no way we can make the right assumptions to deal with the outbreak."

Nikodemus stood with his head pressed back against the wall, his wings folded defensively across his chest. He did his best to ignore Fred's presence in the room, trying to focus on anything else instead.

"Ok, so we have a plan," Angel said. "We keep going with the hot spots, and we keep an eye out for any vampires exhibiting unusual symptoms. Anything else?"

As everyone else filed out, Cordelia came up to Angel and took his hand.

"I really am worried about you," she said. "I know what I saw."

"And you knew the minute you saw it that I wasn't going to run away."

"That's what I love about you."

Angel paused, taken aback a moment. "I'm sorry," he said.

"You know this is bullshit," Cordelia spat. "It has nothing to do with what happened before I came back and everything to do with your fear of having a normal relationship."

"I'm not allowed to have a normal relationship," Angel said. "I'm cursed, remember? All I get to do is fight."

"You don't have to fight me," Cordy said, softly.

* * *

"We've got to get out of here," Xander said. He pointed to one of the police vans, parked across the street some distance away. "If we stay she's just going to kill us all."

"We can win this," Willow said, riding high on her rush of power.

"Willow," Kennedy said. "Your hair … it's gone all black."

Willow grabbed a lock to verify for herself. "What do you think it means?" she asked.

"It doesn't matter," Wood said. "You did what you had to do, there's nothing we can do to change it."

"Listen to me," Xander continued. "I know what I'm talking about. She's all juiced up on Slayer blood, and the taps just keep flowing."

"So where are we going to go?" Faith asked.

"Anywhere but here," Xander said, climbing into the driver's seat. Wood climbed into the passenger's seat beside him, leaving the others to pile into the back.

"If we go, we're condemning all those people to die," Kennedy said.

"Yes, I'm aware of that," Xander said, through the slotted metal divider that separated the cabin from the prisoner compartment. "But if we live long enough to figure out how to stop Colleen, we might just save a city."

They knew they had no choice. There were too many vampires, too many victims, and Colleen was far too powerful right now. If they waited a few hours, Colleen would crash like a junkie and then they'd have time to try to find a way to retake the upper hand.

Xander started in second, pushing two police cruisers out of the way to get rolling. "Hold on back there," he called.

Wood grabbed on to the Jesus bar and held on tight. It was uncomfortable sitting up so high off the road, but it was something that they quickly got used to. Xander didn't try to drive like a maniac, but a few of the vampires had noticed their escape and were giving pursuit.

Kennedy pushed open the back door to the paddy wagon, giving Willow a good shot to dismount one of their pursuers. Chao-Ahn ripped up the seats and threw them out the back at the vampires, anything to disable their motorcycles and end their pursuit.

"What are we going to do next?" Kennedy asked.

"We've got to find some place to hide out," Faith said. "I know a few friends who will give us a spot to stay for a while. Hopefully somewhere Colleen won't think to look."

"It seems like she's everywhere," Kennedy said. "I don't know how she can find us."

"It doesn't matter," Faith said. "It's not like my house is a secret or anything, she could have looked me up in the yellow pages if she knew the name I've been living under."

"We're going to have to ditch this van somewhere," Xander said. "I think it might be a bit noticeable."

"What are we going to do for transportation?" Willow asked.

"I can hotwire something," Faith said. "It's simple enough. If we see something that will work out we can park there."

"Ok," Xander said, keeping an eye on the cars parked along the road. "It looks like the other ambulances finally got there."

"That means they're all dead," Willow said, looking out the back of the van with sadness taking the beauty from her face.

"There's nothing we could have done," Xander said. "If we'd have stayed we'd have died."

"You don't know that," Kennedy said. "Maybe we could have gotten a few of them away."

"We barely got ourselves away," Xander snapped back. "But if we're dead there's no one to stop Colleen."

"Not that we're doing anything to really stop her ourselves," Kennedy said.

"Don't get discouraged," Willow said. "At least we're still here."

"That's something," Kennedy conceded. "Now if we could just figure out how to make that matter."

"It matters," Wood said. "Every second we're alive we have a new chance to figure out how to make this better."

"Maybe we're not supposed to make this better," Xander said. "Maybe this really is the end."

"Don't talk like that," Faith said. "Once this is over we're going to look back on this and laugh."

"Somehow I doubt we'll see the humor in running for our lives for the second time in two nights," Xander said.

"We have to find out who is protecting Colleen," Willow said. "If I can't get around her magic then there's nothing I can do against her."

"Maybe that car is a clue," Kennedy said. "It's pretty distinctive."

"We should look into that," Wood said. "It's obvious that she hasn't been in Cleveland the whole time. She's new here."

"But we know nothing about the situation on the ground here," Kennedy said. "We have no idea what's going on in the vampire community either."

"We need Spike," Willow said.


End file.
